With his right hand Zeke attempted to force a waker-upper pill down the cat’s mouth, but D.C. anticipated the move and locked his teeth. “Take this,” Zeke muttered. “Doggone you, take this.” A hind paw tore his shirt and located soft flesh. Zeke stifled an outcry but bravely and doggedly held on. He moved the pill along the clenched teeth until he discovered an opening where they met improperly. He pushed the pill in and closed his hand about D.C.‘s mouth to keep him from spitting it out.
“Heaven help me,” he mumbled to himself, “if Washington finds out I’m doping cats.”
D.C. half choked, and swallowed three times before Zeke released him. Quickly Zeke backed away, which was a wise move since all the savagery of a thousand generations of ancestors lashed out for the jugular vein, or any kind of old artery handy. For a frightened moment, Zeke thought the cat was going to spring for him. But D.C. recognized superior force and stopped where he was. He sat on his haunches a long time, and then the fury slipped out of his eyes and triumph sneaked in. First he assured himself Zeke was watching, and then, only as a cat can, spat out the pill that he had carefully held on his tongue. He spat it with a hair-raising sound effect. He spat it as far as possible, which was well beyond the bed. His expression said, You want tricks, man, I’ll give you tricks.
Zeke sank into the chintz chair, the wind gone from him. He didn’t know quite why all of this had befallen him. There he was at his desk this morning, minding his own business, feeling the high spirit of the early hours, the challenge of another day, the pleasant warmth of a rising sun, the happy thought of a second cup of coffee, and then he had taken the call. If someone else had, he might have been assigned a nice, respectable homicide with a perfectly normal informant.
Along about eleven Patti drifted in.“Want me to loan you a pair of Dad’s pajamas? They’ll be a little big around the middle, and you’ll look like a clown.”
He shook his head. He had better stay up, on the chance that D.C. would change his mind.
“No use to,” she said. “He’s bedded down but good for the night.”
She dropped to the bed beside D.C. and rubbed his neck. He groaned happily in his sleep.
“I had a pinto once,” Zeke said. “Loved to have me do that.”
She smiled, and in no time discovered they had a mutual love for the outdoors. She said,“Dad was in lumber when I was growing up, over in Arizona . I guess I was a dreamy-eyed kid. I remember I used to ride through the Coconino forest on the excuse I was seeing how many different species of birds I could count. But I was always expecting to meet some tall, handsome guy I’d fall for.”
The family had moved to Los Angeles when the work grew too rugged for her father; she had attended the University of California at Los Angeles ; and she had taken up modeling when a girl friend found her a job.
“But I’m not very ambitious. I don’t care about staying in modeling. Time catches up with you too fast. Besides, you get so hungry.”
By now the world outside was quiet, all of the noises having collected themselves and run off. She continued dreamily,“I’ve got just one burning ambition. I want to have two boys like Mike and two girls like Inky. The only trouble is that a man’s necessary, since you can’t order kids yet out of the Sears Roebuck catalogue.”
As she talked, she grew increasingly conscious of the intimacy of the moment ? Zeke in her room, his long hulk draped over the chintz chair, his head resting against the back. A short time before he had been a stranger, but he was the kind who after a half hour of talk was an old friend.
“Sure you don’t want some pajamas?” she asked, rising.
He said no, and sneezed hard.“You wouldn’t have anything for hay fever, would you?”
14
The next morning Patti overslept, and there was more hubbub than usual. Mike was upset.“I can’t tell the rocket club not to come, can I? We’ve been plannin’ it for a month.”
“Listen, Mike,” Patti’ said, plugging in the electric skillet, “don’t give me trouble.”
“D.C. won’t mind. He likes rockets.” Mike roughed up D.C., who, refreshed by a good night’s sleep, was watching the proceedings from his usual place on the refrigerator, surveying it all with that benevolent attitude he graciously bestowed on humans after wolfing down a tin of cat food.
“Cancel it,” Patti said.
“What’ll I tell ‘em?”
“That I’ve got a migraine.”
“That’d be lying.”
Ingrid spoke up.“Can’t you get it through your skull, Michael Randall, how serious this is, how everything depends on our helping Mr. Kelso?”
She turned to Patti,“I don’t think I’ll ever be able to understand him. He would undermine the FBI for an old rocket club.”
She cracked the eggs and dropped them in the skillet Patti had prepared.“Pray for me today, will you, sis?”
“Huh?” said Patti, looking up.
“If I don’t pass geometry, after all I’ve done for that stupid school.” She shrugged. “Oh, well, as I always say, flunk now and avoid the June rush.’
She turned the eggs and continued,“And I’ll simply die if Tommy doesn’t ask me, especially if I hint around.”
“What a drip,” Mike said.
“You pick your friends and I’ll pick mine.” She hurried on. “I’m going over to Bethie’s after school. Okay?”
Bethie was Beth Ann Nixon, a tall, striking girl with a poise and maturity remarkable for her age. Or any age, for that matter.
“Okay,” Patti said, appreciating the fact that Ingrid kept her posted on her whereabouts. Not many kid sisters were that thoughtful.
Zeke emerged then, drawn and haggard. He had dozed in fits and starts, to quote him. He stared with something akin to rage at the clear-eyed D.C.
“How do you want your eggs?” Patti asked. He protested, insisting he would get breakfast on his way to the office.
Ingrid pushed him toward a chair.“I’ll get your breakfast. I just love to cook.”
“Would you mind repeating that?” asked Mike.
“She’s a good cook,” Patti said.
Zeke seated Patti, and then Ingrid, at the breakfast table, and Ingrid beamed. Zeke informed them that another agent would report at 8 a.m. to take over the day shift. He was apologetic about disrupting their home. He promised he would slip in and out as unobtrusively as possible. He said he realized that little things might give away the presence of someone in the house, such as the position of the bedroom drapes in the daytime. Patti opened them on rising, but he and his fellow agent would keep them drawn. It was possible, too, that neighbors might hear their movements, although theywould remove their shoes and walk about in their stocking feet. He questioned her about the time the postman came, and the milkman, and if any cleaning woman or neighbor might enter.
“You’re wasting your time,” Patti said. “You couldn’t push D.C. out with a ten-ton tractor in the daytime. The mockingbirds stand guard in shifts at the back door.”
“You mean a great big cat like him is afraid of a mockingbird?”
“Not afraid. Paralyzed.”
Blasted cat, he thought. It was a horrible enough fate to draw a cat as an informant in the first place, and even worse to draw a cat that was a coward
.
Shortly after breakfast Patti left the house. She had paused to examine the apricot when Mrs. Macdougall descended on her, all two hundred pounds.“You poor, poor child. I saw the light burning in your bedroom when I got up to take my drops. My heart’s been troublin’ me, I came near to dyin’ one night, and the doctor gave me these drops. And I said to Mr. Macdougall ? he always wakes up when I get up ? I said, ‘Wilbur, somebody’s been taken ill over at the Randall home!’ ” She added by way of explanation, “I could hear you and the doctor talking.”